Weil Gotshal

* The DOJ sent a newsletter to the nation’s immigration judges including links to a white nationalist website. Bill Barr is running a real crackerjack organization. [Buzzfeed News]

* A deep question and answer exchange with Penn Law’s Amy Wax and she comes off just as loony as you’d expect. [New Yorker]

* It looks like Michael Avenatti is going to put Nike on trial in his upcoming extortion suit. [Law360]

* A Brad Pitt role holds the key to being a good prosecutor. It’s not Tyler Durden and that’s a little surprising. [ABA Journal]

* Weil Gotshal may have cost investment bankers millions, leaving them mere multimillionaires. [NY Post]

* Ed Whelan seems to have no idea how law review articles are written in this tortured effort to defend Trump circuit appointee Steve Menashi’s reputation. Essentially, Whelan says because Menashi’s controversial article was cited by real academics it must be real scholarship — as opposed to a 2L randomly inserting Menashi into a string cite. [National Review]

* Nicholas Sparks won that fight he’s been having with the former headmaster of his vanity school. [Deadline]

* Donald Trump won’t stop tweeting about the Mueller report, most recently claiming that he “never told then White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Robert Mueller.” Meanwhile, the president’s allies would really like it if he just STFU about it. [POLITICO]

* Federal prosecutors have charged Judge Shelley Richmond Joseph of Massachusetts with obstruction and perjury for allegedly allowing an undocumented immigrant to leave a courthouse through a back door to prevent immigration authorities from conducting an arrest. [USA Today]

* Reed Smith, which represents Concord Management and Consulting, the Russian company indicted in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, has asked that both Mueller and AG Bill Barr be held in contempt over the redacted release of the Mueller report. [National Law Journal]

* The ugly side of fashion law: A senior in-house attorney at LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton Inc. has filed suit against the company, claiming that she was sexually harassed by a male coworker and punished for reporting it. [New York Law Journal]

* Weil Gotshal is willing to pay big money to pre-law students who’ve been accepted at certain T14 schools for doing nonprofit work. The Biglaw firm is planning to fork over $1 million a year so these up-and-coming law students can work at public interest jobs. [Big Law Business]

* “You were very busy. Wow. Wow. I always knew I liked him.” President Trump posthumously awarded the Medal of Freedom to the Justice Antonin Scalia on Friday and managed to crack a joke about the late justice’s sex life when referring to his wife and their nine children. Wow. [USA Today]

* Speaking about birth control… President Trump has proposed a new way for employers to get around the Affordable Care Act’s birth control mandate by creating a Title X loophole that would “hijack” programs that already have limited funding and send women to low-income family planning clinics to get their contraceptives. [New York Times]

* Will Biglaw be the next thing that millennials kill? Not only has Weil Gotshal shortened its partner track in order to keep its youthful talent from walking out the door, but the firm that once made a big joke out of work/life balance is now allowing associates to work from home once a week. [American Lawyer]

* The California bar exam results are out, and they’re not anything to write home about — except if you enjoy schadenfreude, that is. Nearly six in 10 failed the test, and the overall pass rate is historically horrible. More on this later. [The Recorder]

* After having already been rejected by the ABA’s House of Delegates, the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has sent its proposed 75 percent bar-passage rate within two years of graduation accreditation standard right back for another vote. Will it be approved this time around? We shall see. [ABA Journal]

* Joel Sanders, the ex-CFO of failed firm Dewey & LeBoeuf, was jailed on Thursday for failing to pay a $1 million fine associated with his fraud conviction, but he was out by the wee hours of the morning on Friday thanks to his new firm, Greenspoon Marder, which paid the entire sum on his behalf. [American Lawyer]

* Among all of his other legal worries, Michael Cohen is now under investigation for tax fraud. This guy just can’t catch a break. [Wall Street Journal]

* You may remember the “frozen trucker” case that Justice Neil Gorsuch was plagued by during his confirmation hearings. As it turns out, Judge Brett Kavanaugh has his own “frozen trucker” case, but his involves a woman who was drowned by a killer whale at SeaWorld. Stay tuned for questions about that. [Slate]

* You may want to lateral to another firm in a hot market like Texas, but bless your heart, that doesn’t mean your current firm is going to just let you do it. More and more firms — like Weil Gotshal, Baker Botts — have been enforcing their contractual “hold” provisions and delaying lateral moves. [Texas Lawyer]

* Let’s face it: if you’re applying to law schools, you’re not going to be able to get in to all of them. Figure out which ones are your safety schools ASAP. [U.S. News]

* Angelina Jolie has accused Brad Pitt of neglecting his child support obligations in a new court filing, claiming that the actor hasn’t made any “meaningful” payments in the year and a half since Jolie filed for divorce. [NBC News]

* Children’s lawsuit over climate change moves forward. [Courthouse News Service]

* If you’re an armed terrorist organization, AstraZeneca may be able to help. [Corporate Counsel]

* In “dog bites man” news, profitable partners accused of sexual harassment can easily get new jobs. [Wall Street Journal]

* “We’ll Get You And Mangle You” takes on new meaning as Weil holds attorney to a six month waiting period before he can lateral to Kirkland. [American Lawyer]

* Maybe cyberinsurance isn’t really insurance at all. [Slate]

* North Carolina awards man $8.8 million because his wife doesn’t love him anymore. Apparently being a loser can be profitable. [KCRA]

* Cleary’s in-house outsourcing company slapped with another sexual harassment suit. [Law360]

* A conversation with Michele Coleman Mayes, general counsel for the New York Public Library and former GC at Allstate and at Pitney Bowes about the persistent bias against black women lawyers. [Law.com]

* Harvard Law School unveils new plaque recognizing the contributions of Isaac Royall’s slaves. [Smithsonian Magazine] * In an open letter, 47 high-profile conservatives, including Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and former Attorney General Edwin Meese III, blast the Southern Poverty Law Center for using the […]

* Johnson & Johnson pushing back against the baby powder cancer verdicts. I thought J&J was the one that wasn’t supposed to cause tears. [Law.com]

* Nine percent tuition hike in store for this law school. [Inforum]

* While the Comey story has sucked up a lot of attention, civil libertarians are watching West Virginia, where a reporter was arrested for asking a question of the Trump administration. [US News & World Report]

* What was Putin wearing when he gave his thoughts on Comey’s firing? (A) A bear costume; (B) A Russian Air Force Uniform; (C) MAGA Hat; (D) Hockey Gear; (E) Shirtless. [Huffington Post]

* German authorities laugh off Jones Day complaints. [Am Law Daily]

* Fewer meetings makes for a better team. This… apparently isn’t obvious to people yet. [Corporate Counsel]

* Chinese hackers have to pay up for breaches at Cravath and Weil Gotshal. [Big Law Business]

* Judge Kaplan was attacked by a pit bull, but he’s all right now. [Law360]

* Judge William C. Canby Jr, Judge Michelle T. Friedland, and Judge Richard R. Clifton will hear tonight’s oral argument on Trump’s travel ban. Or should we say they’re the “so-called judges” who will hear tonight’s argument. [CNN]

* Weil Gotshal announces significant gains in both revenues and profits. No associates were mangled in the making of this news. [Am Law Daily]

* Former Bio-Rad GC Sanford Wadler wins big in his whistleblower retaliation case. Bio-Rad has attempted to cast him as a jerk who yelled at his underlings, but the jury realized that just made him “a lawyer” and not a justification to terminate him. [Corporate Counsel]

* Vizio settled with the FTC over turning all of their customers into unwitting “Nielsen Families.” But you should still be worried about that toaster that’s been spying on you. [Litigation Daily]

* Dewey still even care about this case? [Law360]

* Gibson Dunn opens a Houston office because oil and gas are still big business. [Texas Lawyer]

* You may have seen the viral post about a subway car full of New Yorkers who go to work scrubbing swastika graffiti off the walls. The man who started the effort was Wilson Elser associate Gregory Locke. [Am Law Daily]

* “Absent a showing that the requested enforcement action could not shake loose a few more emails, the case is not moot.” Because 2016 isn’t over yet and we love kicking horses thought to be dead, the D.C. Circuit has revived a legal challenge regarding Hillary Clinton’s private email server that was once considered to be moot. [Reuters]

* The Supreme Court may be taking a turn to the conservative side come 2017, but not immediately. It’s expected that shortly after his inauguration, President Trump will announce his nominee in either late January or early February, with confirmation hearings held in March, and a vote sometime in April. By the time a new justice is sworn in, there will be just a few days left of oral arguments for the current Term. [NPR]

* “This case of cyber meets securities fraud should serve as a wake-up call for law firms around the world.” Three Chinese hackers have been charged with breaking into the servers of several Biglaw firms — firms like Cravath and Weil Gotshal — to illegally trade on stolen information. They made more than $4 million, but only one of them has been arrested thus far and is awaiting extradition to the United States. [Bloomberg]

* “Providing a profit motive to make arrests gives officers an incentive to make improper arrests.” In counties across the country, those who are arrested must pay “booking fees,” regardless of whether or not they are found guilty of their crimes. Two cases regarding these fees will soon be heard by the Supreme Court in early 2017, and one county was so brazen that it didn’t even bother to submit a brief in opposition. [New York Times]

* If you’re applying to law school, you may be wondering how you can make the strongest argument for your acceptance in your application. Focus on your essays and make sure that you provide compelling examples of the type of person you are and your career goals. If you can sway just one person on the admissions committee to give you a chance, then you might soon find an acceptance letter with your name on it. [U.S. News]

* Brad Pitt filed a motion to seal the details of his custody arrangement with Angelia Jolie to protect his children’s privacy, but a judge has rejected the actor’s request. A lawyer for Jolie had this to say: “His … request is a thinly veiled attempt to shield himself, rather than the minor children, from public view.” Ouch. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

* CHECK YOU EMAILS OFTEN, PARTNERS! Several Biglaw firms — including Cravath and Weil Gotshal — were hit by data breaches over the course of last year, and it’s now been confirmed that those data breaches were carried out by Chinese operatives who were successful in stealing about seven gigabytes of data by hacking their way into partners’ email accounts. [Fortune]

* Each December, Jeffrey Toobin creates a “semi-accurate, semi-serious” list of his predictions for the top legal stories for the coming year. Perhaps most notably, Toobin predicts President Donald Trump will appoint Judge Diane Sykes of the Seventh Circuit to the Supreme Court as the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s replacement. [New Yorker]

* Which is more prestigious, a judicial clerkship or a first-of-its-kind Capitol Hill clerkship? Earlier this week, four senators introduced a bill to create a dozen yearlong Congressional clerkships for recent law school graduates. The bill would allow law school graduates to “spend a formative year in the legislative branch.” [National Law Journal]

* Per the most recent Corporate Equity Index survey released by the Human Rights Campaign, more Biglaw firms are doing well when it comes to protecting their lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender employees. One hundred and twelve firms earned perfect scores for their inclusive policies in the survey, up from 95 last year. [Am Law Daily]